A Brief History of the Private Life of Elizabeth II (19 page)

In spite of international upheaval and official duty, the public continued to see – or wish to see – the Royals as a mirror-image of themselves. The popular press had become steadily
more intrusive, and the Palace had realised that aloofness was
not the answer when dealing with this. Better to accommodate them where possible, and thus have some influence
over what they published. Public relations took a significant step forward when, in 1965, William Heseltine was appointed Assistant Press Secretary. An Australian – and thus free from
accusations that his background or attitudes were stereotypically aloof – he managed the balancing trick of being respected by both the monarch (who found him invaluable) and the media. He
was gently and tactfully to persuade the Family that some greater accommodation of general curiosity would help them. In the new climate of media relations that he built, the Queen granted
permission for television networks to visit her homes. This was not something she would willingly have done – she is a jealous guardian of her privacy – but two others within her circle
helped convince her that the notion would delight the public. One was Lord Mountbatten, a man with little to learn about the art of self-promotion. The other was his son-in-law, the film-maker Lord
Brabourne. Mountbatten had just taken part in a series about his life that was shown on national television. It was widely watched, and he was very pleased with it. He felt that the royal homes of
Britain would not only make gripping television but would give a hint of the life of the monarch in a way that would intrigue her subjects. Although reluctant, Her Majesty agreed.

The series
Royal Palaces of Britain
was produced in 1966 by both television networks, BBC and ITV, together. This was a look at six residences, and was shown on Christmas Day that year.
The programmes proved, as expected, immensely popular. It really created a sense of privilege that, as the publicity material announced: ‘By kind permission of the Queen, cameras [are]
allowed to enter into the private apartments of Britain’s Royal Palaces for the first time.’ It enabled her subjects to look behind the scenes at buildings they knew well by sight, and
allowed incidental glances at the tastes of the Royal Family. The success of this venture soon gave birth to a bolder idea –
a further documentary, this time not about
the buildings but their inhabitants.

The result was not seen for a further three years. Simply titled
Royal Family
, although the press was to nickname it
Corgi and Beth
, it used a formula that was to be repeated often
in both books and exhibitions – that of following the Queen for a year in order to record the activities that were typical of her life and work. Several scenes assumed special interest, and
stayed in the collective memory. One showed the Family cooking in the open air at Balmoral (Prince Philip, it transpired, had designed the barbecue equipment himself, and presided over it with his
usual air of command). Another depicted the Queen visiting a local shop to buy sweets for Prince Edward. The exchange of money, and pleasantries, looked natural enough – although, of course,
an entire camera crew had had to squeeze into the small premises, too, and it was later claimed that because the Queen carries no money, one of them had had to lend her the necessary coinage.

The film took 75 days to shoot, and the result was vivid, informative and illuminating. Most who saw it were fascinated by these unprecedented glimpses of the private moments of such a public
family, though there was also a surprising amount of hand-wringing by traditionalists, who felt that the monarchy was diminished by showing them on holiday looking much like anyone’s
next-door neighbours. Once again, there was astonishment at how, when relaxing, they could seem so ordinary. Viewers were also impressed to see something of the mechanics of how the Household was
run, how hard the Queen worked and what she did all day. The programme was shown twice – once by each network – during the month of June 1969, and was watched by something like
two-thirds of all Britons. Those sitting enthralled by their television sets included, apparently, a professional house-breaker, who wrote anonymously to the producers that he had stayed at home
from work in order to watch. The programme was sold
to 140 countries and earned £120,000 in profits, which were divided between the Queen and the BBC. Her Majesty agreed
to donate her share to the Society of Film and Television Arts.

Royal Family
greatly increased public interest in the monarchy. It was a most effective riposte to Mr Muggeridge’s claim. It also, however, set a new standard for intrusiveness.
Having had such a privileged look at the private lives of the Queen and her family, the public was to regard such intimacy not as a rare, once-and-for-all glimpse but as normal, and a right. By
showing – or suggesting – that the Royals were like everyone else it helped to trivialise them, and was regarded by some within the Family as a disaster. It is significant that the film
has remained locked in the Royal Archives ever since. The Queen owns the copyright, and it cannot be shown without her express permission, which is not forthcoming. Although excerpts are
occasionally screened the programme in its entirety has, for the present at least, vanished.

The Royals may regret allowing access to their lives through the medium of television, but what else could they have done? Public curiosity about them, as their children grew up, was increasing
anyway. The eroding of deference would have happened regardless of whether or not the public could watch them having a barbecue. The result would have been the same, and quite possibly worse. What
was to happen would have happened. It was the spirit of the times.

Less than two weeks after the screenings, public attention was again focused on Royalty. Prince Charles, whom his mother had created Prince of Wales in 1958 when he was a schoolboy at Cheam, was
now 21 and was to be formally invested as Prince at Caernarvon Castle. This event, the most important ceremony since the Coronation, was an opportunity for Wales to stage a big state occasion. In
charge of the arrangements was Antony Armstrong-Jones, who had been created Earl of Snowdon on his marriage to Princess Margaret and was now also Constable of Caernarvon Castle. He had
a flair for architectural design – he had provided an imaginative aviary for London Zoo – and established within the castle ruins a strikingly simple but grandiose
setting. On the greensward – for the ceremony was entirely out of doors – was a plain circular dais. It was of Welsh slate, as were the three thrones for the Prince and his parents. It
was protected from any inclement weather by a swooping canopy but, because the ceremony had to be visible to television cameras at different angles, this was made of transparent Perspex, held up by
what looked like giant spears. Striking and very contemporary, but with just the right historic echoes, it looked remarkably like the stage-set for one of the Shakespeare history plays, and was, in
fact, created by a theatrical designer. A simple and very modern gold chaplet was made for the Prince – again, this looked rather like a prop from a school play – and he wore the
uniform of the recently established Royal Regiment of Wales. Snowdon himself, who would be present in his official capacity, neither had nor wanted any Court costume, and designed for himself a
simple but effective suit of dark green velvet.

The ceremony itself was somewhat contrived. For centuries, Princes of Wales had been connected to the Principality in name only. They had assumed their title in London or Windsor without any
formalities. Only in 1911 when George V’s eldest son (the Duke of Windsor) had been invested had the Welsh Cabinet Minister, Lloyd George, suggested making a public spectacle of it. In 1969,
as in 1911, most Welsh were delighted, but this time there was resentment from a noisy element of nationalists, the Free Wales Army, which threatened to disrupt what they saw as the celebration of
an alien dynasty’s presence in their country. There were bomb threats and even explosions – one device blew off a boy’s leg, another killed the man who was setting it. Security
was tight as the Royals and government officials and the public descended on the small town, but the weather held, the crowds were enthusiastic, the extremists did no damage that day, and 1 July
1969 entered history.

The decade therefore ended with a flourish for the house of Windsor. They had provided their people with a great set-piece event, and they had increased their popularity by
exposure through the media of television. They might have had grounds for complacency.

But in that last year Prince Philip triggered something of a crisis. Interviewed on television while in America, he dropped the bombshell of announcing that the following year the Royal Family
would go ‘into the red’, for the Queen’s Civil list allowance of £475,000 a year had not been increased since she came to the throne. He was to follow this by remarking
that: ‘We may have to move into a smaller home.’

In immediately following years, finance was to play a bigger role for the Royals – and generate more controversy – than anything else.

In many ways this was a decade best forgotten. For the first time large-scale terrorism became a feature of British life, and the level of both viciousness and destruction was
altogether shocking. The Ulster troubles, dormant for a generation, had re-surfaced as a direct result of International Human Rights Year in 1968. Catholic campaigning against Protestant
discrimination had escalated, by the following summer, into virtual civil war, and made it necessary for troops to back up the police in keeping order. Not since the previous Irish conflict in the
1920s had a part of the United Kingdom seemed so much like the Wild West. Gunshots and explosions were a routine nighttime sound in Belfast and Londonderry. With huge amounts of illegal weaponry in
the hands of extremists, bombings, shootings, kidnappings and assassinations became so commonplace as to merit only brief media interest. Judges, policemen and indeed anyone linked with the British
Government was at daily risk of murder. The British Army’s peacekeeping role was effectively the same type of ‘police action’ that had occupied
it for 40
years in Palestine and Cyprus and Aden, and this seemed similarly thankless and unwinnable. The new wave of terrorism, so much nearer home, brought to British cities a degree of violence and
carnage not seen since the Blitz. The IRA clearly had the resources and determination to mount a lengthy campaign, and what added an element of despair for the public was the knowledge that there
was no feasible solution or hope of an end. As a result there was an ugly, fearful edge to life. People went about their business with a grim determination to carry on, braced for horror and
loss.

Industrial relations were to reach their worst level since the Depression. Strikes and shortages were frequent, lengthy and widespread. Trade unions were seen to hold the whip-hand and to bully
and victimise the rest of the public. Many people’s memories of the 1970s are of power cuts, militant strikers, bombs and rampant inflation. Britain’s economic woes became so acute that
the Government was obliged to seek a bail-out from the International Monetary Fund, a thing no major developed country would expect to do. To images of families dining at home by torchlight at the
time of the three-day week were added those of piled-up, uncollected rubbish during the ‘winter of discontent’ and of plane-loads of foreigners arriving to strip the shelves of British
shops because the exchange rate was so much in their favour. These years were symbolised by the youth cult of Punk, a deliberate and anarchic ugliness that suited Britain’s status as the Sick
Man of Europe.

The Royal Family was naturally not immune to these conditions. As always their position at the top of the British Establishment made them vulnerable. As a target for terrorists they had a great
deal to offer – to kill one of them would guarantee headlines and vast international attention, which is what terrorists want. The loss of one might so horrify the British people that their
government would be pressured into conceding defeat. They were not difficult to track, since their movements were listed each day in the Court Circular, and
specific events
were often announced long months in advance. They did not hide, and were frequently in front of crowds that would give cover to an attacker. When going on horseback to and from Horse Guards for
Trooping the Colour the Queen could hardly have been more conspicuous – seated above the heads of the crowd and moving at walking pace. No American President would dream of being so exposed
in public, yet the Queen would countenance no significant compromise. She utterly refused to allow anything that gave the impression she or her family were cowed. The only noticeable concession she
was to make was in the matter of visits to Northern Ireland, in that these were not reported until they were over.

The Royals were a security nightmare but once again the quiet, dogged courage with which the Queen and her family continued their routine of visits and speeches and ceremonies was resoundingly
impressive and reassuring. ‘So long as she’s carrying on as usual,’ people seemed to feel, ‘things can’t be that bad.’ Her Majesty was, after all, something of a
veteran in terms of terrorism. There had been IRA bomb threats in her childhood. During the 1950s there had been rumblings of danger from Cypriot activists (near Balmoral, of all places!), and
there had been threats from the separatist zealots in Quebec and Wales. Unfortunately, an attitude of business as usual was not always the safest policy, and before the decade was over one senior
member of the Family would have been murdered by the IRA.

It was highly ironic that, just as the threat to their personal safety reached unprecedented levels, the Royals also came closer to the people than ever before. 1970 is remembered as the year of
the first ‘walkabout’, a custom that permanently changed the way in which the monarchy was seen by the public, and which the Queen herself saw as the beginning of a new relationship
with her subjects. The term was associated with Australian aborigines and used to describe a period spent wandering in the Bush. In this context it meant that the
sovereign,
and often her family, travelled short distances on foot and stopped to talk to members of the crowd. These are now commonplace, and expected. We are also accustomed, through television, to seeing
the Royal Family close up. It is therefore difficult to imagine the impact of this custom on those who were present on the first occasions. The notion of being only inches from the Royals, perhaps
catching their eye and being asked a question, of being able to give a bouquet or to have your picture taken talking to them, was a major innovation.